His angry footsteps accelerated Sophie’s efforts to release her seat belt.
‘So, it is you,’ he growled, flinging her door as wide as it would go.
‘Xavier. You must have known,’ Sophie insisted calmly, gathering up her wits along with her gear. She had no intention of allowing herself to be drawn into a confrontation with the navy-blue lasers currently trained on her face. And just when had his hair darkened to sepia and mutated into aggressive spikes that emphasized his incredible bone structure, instead of conforming slavishly to the longer, sleeker style that started a whole new fashion amongst his wealthy set years back? Just when had cool become hot?
‘How do you work that out?’ he demanded curtly, stabbing into her memories.
‘Henry wired ahead—’
‘Henry—’ Xavier’s mimicry stopped just the polite side of parody ‘—hasn’t a clue what’s going on out here. He can’t get hold of me by radio, fax, or pigeon post when I’m in the high country. He should know that by now. He should make it his business to know,’ he added firmly, his voice rising when Sophie started to interrupt. ‘He should also know I don’t carry passengers.’
‘Passengers! I’m here to do a job,’ Sophie retorted firmly.
‘Well, there aren’t any cushy clinics out here for you to waft around.’
Sophie bit her tongue. She wouldn’t take the bait and get into an argument with him. Five minutes into their meeting, she already knew the only way to work with Xavier would be to keep everything impersonal—emotion-free. Once aroused, he was just the type of full-blooded male who provoked emotions she chose not to examine too closely. But she could see why he would be shocked to see her. It made her go a little way to accepting his behaviour. If there had been time she would have warned him—given him time to prepare. It had to pain him to be confronted with a face from the past, and one from a family he had every reason to despise. But the Xavier she had known years back would never have behaved like this—and his assumption that she wouldn’t be capable of pulling her weight was inexcusable.
As she went to climb out he slammed one hard, unyielding fist against the door, stopping her.
‘Get out of my way!’ Sophie warned, levelling a red-hot glare into his eyes as she heaved against the door.
Evie’s low whistle forced a brief pause between them.
‘I’d love to stick around to see how this thing works out between you two, but sadly—’ she shot a glance through the windscreen ‘—the light’s failing and time’s pressing on. I gotta go.’
‘Fine,’ Sophie said pleasantly, dumping her rucksack on the ground. ‘Thanks for the ride.’
‘My pleasure.’
‘Now just a minute,’ Xavier insisted savagely. ‘You aren’t going anywhere, Sophie Ford. Get back in there.’
But Sophie had already slipped under his arm, picked up her rucksack, and was powering away from the aircraft as fast as she could.
‘Good luck, Sophie!’ Evie shouted, leaning out of the window, as she wheeled the plane round and lined up for take-off. ‘Don’t forget what I told you. I’m only a plane ride away.’
As the engine noise rose to a crescendo Sophie paused a moment, dropping her heavy rucksack to the ground to raise her hand. The propellers were whipping up a storm of fine dust particles from the hard-baked earth, forcing her to try and protect her eyes as she waved. ‘Thanks, Evie,’ she yelled at the top of her voice. ‘I won’t forget!’
‘I suppose you think that’s smart?’
‘What? I… Thank you,’ Sophie was forced to say with surprise, when instead of continuing to berate her, Xavier snatched up the rucksack she had been carrying.
At least he was still a gentleman, she thought, then let out a grunt as he swung it back on to her shoulders.
‘It will be interesting to see how long you last,’ he called back to her as he made for the truck.
‘I might surprise you.’
‘I doubt it!’ Sophie Ford! Xavier cursed his luck. The pampered product of an overwrought mother and a father— He shook his head and made a sound of utter contempt.
‘Well, thank you for that,’ Sophie shouted after him, firming her lips.
‘Don’t thank me,’ Xavier warned as they reached his truck. ‘You’ll be begging to be sent home within the week.’
‘Not a chance,’ Sophie muttered back, rubbing the last of the dust from her eyes.
Flinging open the passenger door, Xavier offered her his hand. She ignored it.
‘Where I’m going is no place for you,’ he rapped when they were both safely installed inside the cab.
Personal considerations aside, he needed strong, no-nonsense people for his project in Peru, not some dizzy blonde who looked as if she had never got her fingernails dirty in her life. Resting his hands on the steering wheel, he slanted another long look at her. ‘And the pace of the project is too fast for a soft-bred city girl like you.’
‘I’m here to stay, Xavier,’ Sophie said in a quiet, steely voice. ‘Get over it. According to your own promotional literature you need doctors. I’m a qualified doctor—ergo, you need me.’
Xavier’s only response to that was a bark of derision.
Quite a welcome! Sophie thought, biting her tongue. Reminding herself Xavier was her boss, she stayed cool as she ran through every one of the reasons that had brought her to Peru. Leaving him out of the equation, she’d made the right decision. Putting him back in? If fate had conspired to put her in the passenger seat right now, she was going to make damn sure he treated her as an equal from here on in.
‘The first flight I can get you out of here is next week—’
Sophie cut across him angrily. ‘Let me remind you that I signed a contract.’
‘So?’ he challenged harshly. ‘I’ll buy you out of it.’
‘There isn’t enough money in this world to buy me, Xavier.’ If he thought his immense wealth could put her off he was sadly mistaken, Sophie thought, seething with fury. She lost no time disillusioning him. ‘I’m here to do a job. And there is absolutely no possibility that I am simply going to turn tail and run back home on your say-so.’
‘That’s all I need,’ he said with a rough sound of impatience. ‘A headstrong woman.’
‘Too much for you?’ she suggested dryly.
There was a time when little Sophie Ford would never have dreamed of taking him on, Xavier reflected grimly. But there were benefits to be drawn from that. He didn’t have to pussyfoot around for one thing. He could get rid of her the minute the first opportunity presented itself. Contenting himself with a sardonic half-smile, he said nothing more. But a muscle worked in his stubble-shaded jaw, suggesting he would like to say plenty. Turning the key in the ignition, he gunned an aggressively tuned engine into life.
Xavier had always liked to tune his own engines, so nothing much had changed there, Sophie thought, as he took off with a burst of speed that knocked her back in the seat. And yet, she realised, sneaking another glance at him, everything else had changed. What was one of the richest men in Spain doing in the wilds of Peru? What had transformed his life to the extent that he had retrained as a doctor whilst juggling the demands of the Martinez Bordiu birthright? Deep down, Sophie knew she didn’t even have to ask herself that question—but he was looking at her again, his sharp, knowing glance hunting for cracks in the defences she had built around her thoughts—and there was a lot more hidden than she cared for him to see.
Quickly pinning a neutral expression to her face, Sophie turned her head to stare blindly out of the window, but not before the grim smile tugging at Xavier’s lips had caught hold of her composure and tied it in knots. He was so male, so blatantly virile, and there was no escape from him in the confined space. Was this how he treated women now? A mental picture of him thrashing about like a wounded animal, seizing a mate for a few moments’ comfort, and then casting them aside the moment emotions came into play, made her pulse quicken with apprehension.
Determinedly turnin
g her thoughts back to work, Sophie frowned. Surely he didn’t imagine she’d crumble on the sole basis it didn’t suit him to have her in Peru?
Her only crime, as far as she knew, was that she came from his past. But the accident haunted her too; it always would. She felt his loss keenly as she glanced across at him, but Xavier’s lips only hardened as he sensed her scrutiny. She would just have to accept that empathy wasn’t enough. The fact she knew about the accident only made him doubly determined to get rid of her. As first meetings with your new boss went, Sophie mused wryly, this one was a classic!
‘It’s been a long time, Sophie. You’re looking good.’ He caught her off-guard. Straightening up, Sophie instinctively moistened her lips, and even brushed back an errant strand of hair from her face before the calculating and faintly amused look in Xavier’s eyes warned he was playing a very masculine game. She certainly hadn’t come all the way to Peru to provide some male predator with his daily diversion.
The truck’s small cab was like a pressure cooker. It was bog-standard-basic, with no add-on luxuries such as air-conditioning. No luxuries, full stop, Sophie thought, glancing around. It was stifling with heat, and over-cooked opinions. Snatching up the topmost item on a pile stacked on the seat between them, she began fanning herself distractedly.
‘That’s my clean washing,’ Xavier informed her as he retrieved the square of black cotton from her hands.
Boxers! Sophie saw as he shook them out with one hand and went on steering with the other.
‘Fold them, and put them back,’ he instructed, as if having her wave his pants in the air was an everyday occurrence.
‘I…I don’t—’
‘Do it,’ he said, increasing speed.
Save it! Sophie warned herself, knocking her temper back into touch as she replaced the offending article with as little fuss as possible. She had six months to tame this tiger. She could afford to yield on the first occasion.
CHAPTER TWO
SOPHIE sat staring ahead for what felt like hours on end, while the truck bumped and snarled its way across miles of featureless rust-coloured plain. But finally, when neck-ache began to beat at her brain, she was forced to give in. Easing her head from side to side, she stole a glance at her companion. His character had changed for the worse—that much she knew already. Now it was time to see whether the years really had been as kind to him as first impressions suggested…
‘Seen enough, Sophie?’
Well, his senses were as keen as ever.
‘Enough to see you haven’t changed,’ she lied with every appearance of calm. Inwardly she was as churned up as she could ever remember. It was one thing playing the ice-queen to Xavier’s blatant virility, but he was sending her senses haywire! He always had been attractive. But now, with every vestige of civilised man stripped away, he was a lot more dangerous—a fact her body attested to as it responded urgently to him. In fact, there was a whole orchestra thrumming an insistent pulse where at best a mild pelvic clench would normally signal the presence of some attractive male.
‘Is that good, or bad?’ he said, eyes crinkling, lips turned down in wry enquiry.
Sophie felt her senses flare as she ran the inventory. Good—because she really liked his hair shorter, and the fact that it had darkened with age. It was as thick as ever with sideburns losing definition in the black stubble on his jaw…She stopped for a moment. For her, the stronger the attraction, the greater the fear; it was a potent combination, she realised, forcing herself to continue. Good—because his tanned face was just as strong and lean as she remembered it; the type that could almost have been described as stereotypical ‘carved out of granite’ had it not been for some really great additions. The mobile mouth for instance…and those clued-up, laughing eyes… She sucked in a guilty breath as he returned her stare full throttle.
‘You haven’t given me an answer yet,’ he said, turning his attention back to the rutted road. ‘Good. Or bad?’
His resonant voice was strumming her like a practised hand on a finely tuned instrument, the same harmonious chord running through her from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes…and all of that long before her mind had a chance to register the melting pot of confident Latin male and shrewd, irresistible humour he managed to shoe-horn into the one short question.
‘It’s good to see you again, Xavier,’ Sophie admitted carefully, aware that her lips were actually trembling. And bad? The few moments Sophie gave herself to consider this slipped away too quickly. ‘Bad, because you don’t want me here—’ She slammed her mouth shut without even bothering to try and dig herself out of the hole. Was that really the best she could come up with? It sounded like a suck-up! The kind of simpering, no-brain remark the person he seemed to think she had grown into might make. The look on his face only confirmed her worst fears.
‘Too right I don’t,’ he said brusquely.
She should have known. And now she was angrier with herself than with him. Trust her to fall for the brief interlude when he almost made it to polite! She should have known he was only softening her up for the verbal kill. Turning her face away, Sophie stared numbly as the bleak terrain flashed past.
‘So now I get the silent treatment?’ Xavier said, flashing her a glance.
What was she doing here anyway? Sophie asked herself angrily. She could practice medicine equally well back home. Fate? She dismissed that out of hand. Henry? That was more likely. Wide-open spaces before the net of suburbia closed over her. Space from Henry—
‘So, no husband yet?’ Xavier demanded.
The patronising question stabbed into her reverie. ‘Is this what I’m missing?’ Sophie murmured tensely.
‘Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. I asked a simple question.’
‘It’s none of your business, Xavier,’ she flashed back. ‘And let’s get something straight. I may work for you but my private life’s just that—private. I’m here to stay. Get used to it.’
‘You sleep in here,’ Xavier told her as he shouldered open a creaking tin door. ‘I leave for the high country tomorrow morning at dawn.’
As Sophie dumped her rucksack on the ground, Xavier looked round the sparsely furnished room, thumbs firmly planted in the belt-loops of his snug-fitting jeans, inviting her to change her mind and beg him to let her return to her safe, cosy bed back in the UK.
At least it was clean, Sophie thought—floor newly swept, windows bright in their frames of peeling, yellowing paint. Taking in the dilapidation as well as the lack of amenities, she just nodded her head. ‘Fine. I’ll be ready first thing tomorrow,’ she agreed evenly.
Xavier shifted position, drawing himself up. Asserting his authority. Sophie felt herself instinctively bristling in response.
‘I said I’d be heading for the high country. You’ll be staying here.’
‘Oh, really?’ Sophie knew she was overtired. The last thing she wanted was a fight. But she had no intention of backing down either.
‘Yes, really,’ he stated firmly.
They were confronting each other tensely like two stalking tigers. Xavier broke the silence first, adding a little more chaos to his hair with an impatient pass of his strong, tanned fingers.
‘Look, Sophie,’ he said, applying a very masculine brand of reason. ‘This place needs sorting out before morning. A pile of new medical supplies have arrived, and they all need putting away in some sort of order. Then the details need filing—’
‘If you wanted a filing clerk you should have requested one in your list of job opportunities in the recruitment pack,’ Sophie pointed out.
‘We’re a team. We share the work-load.’
‘Then may I suggest you stay with me here at base until we have completed the office work and stock-take. Then we can both travel on to the high country together.’
There was just enough of a pause to show that she had got through to him.
‘What I’m trying to say—’
‘I think I know what you’re trying to
say, Xavier,’ Sophie countered firmly.
As she watched his eyes narrow she felt a thread of apprehension run through her. Xavier had become a difficult, complex man, not someone it was sensible to range herself against. But teamwork meant sharing everything, didn’t it? From clearing up, to treating patients. ‘I’d better sort out my things…freshen up,’ she said, taking a different tack in the hope of cooling things down.
‘Of course.’ He gave her a mock bow, but his disturbing gaze held her own until Sophie’s desperately searching fingers managed to locate the fastenings on her bulging rucksack and she could pretend to busy herself with that. But before he left she wanted another answer. ‘Who sleeps in here?’ she said, surveying the row of camp beds.
‘Me,’ Xavier said with a shrug, ‘and whoever else drops in.’
Taking a deep breath, Sophie swallowed back the panic that threatened to choke her. She was here to work. She had to forget every one of her personal concerns and just get on with it. ‘How exhilarating,’ she managed evenly. ‘I shall never know what to expect from one night to the next.’
Xavier shot her a darkly amused stare. ‘You won’t be here that long,’ he promised.
‘Don’t count on it,’ Sophie murmured under her breath, glancing around.
‘My apologies,’ Xavier said as he watched her. ‘I don’t know what you were expecting, but this isn’t the Ritz. It’s just an old place I’m using until I get something else built.’
‘I think it’s all quite satisfactory, thank you,’ Sophie countered. ‘Apart from having to share with you, it’s exactly what I expected.’ She saw his lips kick up at one corner, and his eyes begin to gleam. ‘Bathroom?’ she demanded briskly, though her heart was still juddering.
‘Bathroom?’ The drawled exclamation was accompanied by another humour-laced stare. ‘Turn right outside the door, third bush down—’
The Spaniard's Revenge Page 2
